A quilty weekend

 It feels odd to have done more sewing this weekend than I have done for literally months. That came about because I happened to see an invitation on Facebook  for Brits to join an online Canadian quilting retreat. It sounded fun so I signed up and logged into Zoom at 3pm on Friday, ready to sew and with DH warned that there would be no supper.  It got off to a anticlimatic start with just me and another Brit wondering where everyone was - turned out the organiser had got the time difference wrong and it didn't start until 4pm UK time - but quilters gradually trickled in until there were over 30 of us.  It's organised like a physical retreat: we had introductions, door prizes, a mystery workshop (to make a wine glass coaster), a tutorial on facing a quilt and there have even been some pop-up vendors but mostly later at night after I've gone to bed.

But the best thing about the retreat is  the psychological permission to just sew from 4pm until late, without the burden of 'I should be doing that', 'I should be getting supper ready', 'I should be doing something worthwhile and not just sewing' etc. etc. It's so silly because I'm retired, I should feel like I have that permission all the time - but I don't. I don't know if it is the vestiges of a lifetime of work ethic but I generally spend most of my time doing chores and paperwork, until I feel like I've earned the reward of doing some crafting - and sometimes I'm too mentally worn out by that point to tackle anything challenging.

In addition to the retreat, I attended the Quilt Guild's region 7 regional day yesterday. I've been a member of the guild since I retired, but this is the first regional day I've managed to attend (and only because DH kindly drove me almost an hour to get there). It was smaller than I expected, I guess I was mentally picturing the bustle of a typical lace day but this was very civilised with about 30 chairs set out to view the presentation by the African fabric shop's Magie Relph on her travels and fabric collecting in Africa and the resulting quilts.  There was a raffle and I actually won a prize of a very nice little Japanese redwork zip pouch kit and a few other bits.  There was a small show and tell - I took along my Janet Clare Spoondrift quilt because I knew most people would recognise the pattern from the magazine BOM.  There was even a decent offering of gluten free cakes which was much appreciated.  In the afternoon we did a workshop with Janice Gunner to collage African fabrics into a little panel.   I met some nice people and it was nice to get out and meet some other quilters in real life. 

African fabric workshop samples

I came home and logged straight back into the Canadian retrest a bit late, and kept working on the little African panel.  So this is what I've been working on this weekend so far:

I assembled and lined the little knitted bag from 'Wool Gathering' magazine, that I was knitting in Shetland. It is probably a bit small for a knitting bag, it could be a tatting bag (if I still tatted)

I took apart the fair isle knitted shoulder bag that I bought in Shetland, removed the overly bulky and long shoulder strap, and added some soft handles. I put it back together and understitched the lining so that it tucks into the bag neatly now.  This will make a nice knitting bag for smaller projects.

This is the raffle prize I won.

This is my African panel which I turned into a little folding wallet with bound edges.  The button was also given to us by Magy. This project was a bit out of my comfort zone, most African fabrics are not my typical colours/patterns and I don't do much free form piecing.  Nice to finish something though.

In between the smaller projects, I've been working on the sewing panel wallhanging that I started several weeks ago.  I think it just needs some kind of border now.

Last week, before the quilty weekend, I stopped procrastinating and finally put together my contribution to a group U3A project. We were asked to make a 5x7" scene that must all feature a path starting two inches from the bottom and being half an inch wide - so that all the scenes can be shown side by side with the path joining them altogether. It's based on a group project one of the members saw somewhere else.  I agreed to do one back in August.  I based mine on the books by Sally Holman about fabric scenes, so it is heavily inspired by her work.   

On the side, I have occasionally been pottering with the book nook kit I bought in Northumbria. It has what seems like a million pieces so it is slow going and is definitely only 'assembly' rather than creativity.  But it is starting to look more interesting.

And finally, here is my new toy: a tiny bluetooth keyboard which I'm hoping is going to solve my problem of trying to type on my phone with my sausage fingers when I'm away travelling. It also connects to my ancient tablet so I might take the tablet as well.  The tablet and keyboard together will be much lighter than the laptop I took to Japan but hopefully will do the same jobs that I want to do on the road: blogging, expenses records, travel research and bookings, watching videos etc.  It's slightly awkward to type on due to the size, but already hugely better than the phone.